My parents enrolled me in a gymnastics class when I was three years old, and I just was drawn to gymnastics. I loved it. It was my playground, and I could run around and be free there.

I learned to take those experiences that were difficult in my life and in the adversity that I had overcome to use it for a positive change.

Training with Bela and Marta Karolyi took the joy out of the Olympics for me. I look back and feel there was a lot of verbal and physical abuse. For years, I felt it was my problem.

I had this sister that was born who was given up for adoption, and I never knew it.

Autographs and pictures do get a little old, but I don't mind if the people want it.

As a competitive gymnast, my life has always been filled with challenges that would ultimately define my future. From day one, I was taught to be prepared at all costs.

Since my mother is an extremely devoted Christian Orthodox woman, she prayed a great deal and taught me how to pray.

In my very first interview, at nine years old, I said I wanted to be an Olympic gold medalist. That was the first time I said it out loud in front of somebody other than my parents.

I was 26 years old when I found out that I had a sister who I never knew existed.

When the world becomes peaceful for the birds, the birds will sing a harmonious chorale

The American essayist William Deresiewicz wrote that "no real excellence, personal or social, artistic, philosophical, scientific, or moral, can arise without solitude.

She took no pleasure in knowing…whatever he asked of her, she would do.

No good decision was ever made in a swivel chair.

Music is always going to be only as sophisticated as the culture that consumes it.

Who is there who can make muddy waters clear? But if allowed to remain still, it will gradually clear itself.

Don't be so glued to what you planned that you can't change it.

The national Democratic leadership is going so far left, they've left America. Don't let them bury the American dream in their graveyard of gloom and envy.

What the American public wants in the theater is a tragedy with a happy ending.

Don't talk to me about naval tradition. It's nothing but rum, sodomy, and the lash.